reefs in Biological News

Caribbean coral reefs flattened

Coral reefs throughout the Caribbean have been comprehensively 'flattened' over the last 40 years, according to a disturbing new study by the University of East Anglia (UEA). The collapse of reef structure has serious implications for biodiversity and coastal defences a double whammy for fragi...

In the turf war against seaweed, coral reefs more resilient than expected

There's little doubt that coral reefs the world over face threats on many fronts: pollution, diseases, destructive fishing practices and warming oceans. But reefs appear to be more resistant to one potential menace seaweed than previously thought, according to new research by a team of marine sc...

Stanford scientists find heat-tolerant coral reefs that may resist climate change

Experts say that more than half of the world's coral reefs could disappear in the next 50 years, in large part because of higher ocean temperatures caused by climate change. But now Stanford University scientists have found evidence that some coral reefs are adapting and may actually survive...

Long-term recovery of reefs from bleaching requires local action to increase resilience

VIRGINIA KEY, Fla. -- In the journal Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science , University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science Professor Dr. Peter Glynn, and 2008 Pew Fellow for Marine Conservation and Assistant Professor Dr. Andrew Baker, assess more than 25 years of data on...

First-ever socioeconomic study on coral reefs points to challenges of coastal resource management

Washington --- A first of its kind study, "Socioeconomic Conditions Along the World's Tropical Coasts: 2008," reports on the social and economic ramifications of healthy coral reefs in 27 tropical nations and points to the inability of coastal managers to effectively implement decades-old recomme...

Time running out on coral reefs as climate change becomes increasing threat

Increasing pressures from climate change will reach a tipping point in less than a decade triggering a significant decline in the health of the planet's coral reef ecosystems according to the findings in an international report issued today. Released by the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network...

Coral reefs found growing in cold, deep ocean

Imagine descending in a submarine to the ice-cold, ink-black depths of the ocean, 800 metres under the surface of the Atlantic. Here the tops of the hills are covered in large coral reefs. NIOZ-researcher Furu Mienis studied the formation of these unknown cold-water relatives of the better-known t...

Shipwrecks on coral reefs harbor unwanted species

Shipwrecks on coral reefs may increase invasion of unwanted species, according to a recent U.S. Geological Survey study. These unwanted species can completely overtake the reef and eliminate all the native coral, dramatically decreasing the diversity of marine organisms on the reef. This study doc...

Fishing ban guards coral reefs against predatory starfish outbreaks

No-take marine reserves where fishing is banned can have benefits that extend beyond the exploited fishes they are specifically designed to protect, according to new evidence from Australia's Great Barrier Reef reported in the July 22nd issue of Current Biology , a Cell Press publication. Researc...

Scientists discover new reefs teeming with marine life in Brazil

Fort Lauderdale, FL (July 8, 2008) Scientists announced today the discovery of reef structures they believe doubles the size of the Southern Atlantic Ocean's largest and richest reef system, the Abrolhos Bank, off the southern coast of Brazil's Bahia state. The newly discovered area is also far...

NOAA report states half of US coral reefs in 'poor' or 'fair' condition

Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Nearly half of U.S. coral reef ecosystems are considered to be in "poor" or "fair" condition according to a new NOAA analysis of the health of coral reefs under U.S. jurisdiction. The report issued today, The State of Coral Reef Ecosystems of the United States and Pacifi...

Coral reefs and climate change: Microbes could be the key to coral death

Coral reefs could be dying out because of changes to the microbes that live in them just as much as from the direct rise in temperature caused by global warming, according to scientists speaking today (Wednesday 2 April 2008) at the Society for General Microbiologys 162nd meeting being held this w...

Coral reefs may be protected by natural ocean thermostat

BOULDER--Natural processes may prevent oceans from warming beyond a certain point, helping protect some coral reefs from the impacts of climate change, new research finds. The study, by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and Australian Institute of Marine Science (AI...

Coral reefs unlikely to survive in acid oceans

Stanford, CA Carbon emissions from human activities are not just heating up the globe, they are changing the oceans chemistry. This could soon be fatal to coral reefs, which are havens for marine biodiversity and underpin the economies of many coastal communities. Scientists from the Carnegie I...

Coral reefs will be permanently damaged without urgent action

Coral reefs could be damaged beyond repair, unless we change the way we manage the marine environment. New research by the Universities of Exeter and California Davis, published today (1 November 2007) in Nature, shows how damaged Caribbean reefs will continue to decline over the next 50 years. ...

Tropical crab invades Georgia oyster reefs -- but the long-term impact can't be predicted

A dime-sized tropical crab that has invaded coastal waters in the Southeast United States is having both positive and negative effects on oyster reefs, leaving researchers unable to predict what the creatures long-term impact will be. Unlike native crabs that eat baby oysters, mussels and fish,...

Studies shed light on collapse of coral reefs

CORVALLIS, Ore. An explosion of knowledge has been made in the last few years about the basic biology of corals, researchers say in a new report, helping to explain why coral reefs around the world are collapsing and what it will take for them to survive a gauntlet of climate change and ocean aci...

Rules proposed to save the world's coral reefs

An international team of scientists has proposed a set of basic rules to help save the world's imperiled coral reefs from ultimate destruction. Their proposal is being unveiled at the World Ocean Conference 2009 in Manado, Indonesia, where leaders of six regional governments plus Australia and ...

Large sponges may be reattached to coral reefs

Key Largo, Fla. April 27, 2009 A new study appearing in Restoration Ecology describes a novel technique for reattaching large sponges that have been dislodged from coral reefs. The findings could be generally applied to the restoration of other large sponge species removed by human activities ...

Diversity of plant-eating fishes may be key to recovery of coral reefs

For endangered coral reefs, not all plant-eating fish are created equal. A report scheduled to be published this week in the early edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests that maintaining the proper balance of herbivorous fishes may be critical to resto...

Modest CO2 cutbacks may be too little, too late for coral reefs

Stanford, CAHow much carbon dioxide is too much? According to United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) greenhouse gases in the atmosphere need to be stabilized at levels low enough to "prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system." But scientists have ...

No-take zones offer no boost for bleached reefs

Conservation zones are in the wrong place to protect vulnerable coral reefs from the effects of global warming, an international team of scientists warned today. Now the team led jointly by Newcastle University and the Wildlife Conservation Society, New York say that urgent action is needed to ...

Lionfish decimating tropical fish populations, threaten coral reefs

CORVALLIS, Ore. The invasion of predatory lionfish in the Caribbean region poses yet another major threat there to coral reef ecosystems a new study has found that within a short period after the entry of lionfish into an area, the survival of other reef fishes is slashed by about 80 percent. ...

Environmental groups call for increased protection of coral reefs

Washington, DC (Jan. 24, 2008) As 17 countries and 30 organizations launch the International Year of the Reef today, three major environmental groups World Wildlife Fund, The Nature Conservancy and Conservation International call on governments, businesses, scientists, non-governmental organiza...

Humans have caused profound changes in Caribbean coral reefs

Coral reefs in the Caribbean have suffered significant changes due to the proximal effects of a growing human population, reports a study published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, B. It is well acknowledged that coral reefs are declining worldwide but the driving forces remai...

It's official: The carbon crisis is lethal for coral reefs

THE SITUATION: The largest living structures on Earth and the millions of livelihoods which depend upon them are at risk, the most definitive review yet of the impact of rising carbon emissions on coral reefs has concluded. In a paper published in the prestigious Science Magazine today, 1...

Healthy coral reefs hit hard by warmer temperatures

Coral disease outbreaks have struck the healthiest sections of Australia's Great Barrier Reef, where for the first time researchers have conclusively linked disease severity and ocean temperature. Close living quarters among coral may make it easy for infection to spread, researchers have found. ...

Palau's coral reefs show differential habitat recovery following the 1998 bleaching event

Coral reef bleaching, believed to be one of the detrimental effects of climate change, may receive a welcomed "buffer" through effective local management, according to new research by a team of scientists recording the long-term recovery of coral reefs in Palau and elsewhere. "It appears that cor...

Study: Living coral reefs provide better protection from tsunami waves

Healthy coral reefs provide their adjacent coasts with substantially more protection from destructive tsunami waves than do unhealthy or dead reefs, a Princeton University study suggests. Initially spurred by the tsunami that devastated the coastlines of the Indian Ocean two years ago, a team of...

Coral reefs are increasingly vulnerable to angry oceans

Size and shape may predict the survival of corals around the world when the weather churns the oceans in the years to come, according to a new model that relies on engineering principles. The increasing violence of storms associated with global climate change, as well as future tsunamis, will hav...

UNH researcher restoring oyster reefs to Great Bay

In the past decade, the oyster population in New Hampshire's Great Bay estuary has plummeted by 90 percent, due to the 1995 arrival of the oyster disease MSX. The previous century saw a slower but equally devastating demise of oysters from exuberant overharvesting. "We have seen local extinction on...

Researchers appeal for new regulations to save coral reefs from live fish trade

Researchers are calling for tighter controls on the live reef fish trade, a growing threat to coral reefs, in letters to the international journal Science. Twenty of the world's leading marine scientists, including a team from the Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, have called for a...

Global warming may have damaged coral reefs forever

Global warming has had a more devastating effect on some of the world's finest coral reefs than previously assumed, suggests the first report to show the long-term impact of sea temperature rise on reef coral and fish communities. Large sections of coral reefs and much of the marine life they su...

Brazil creates buffer zone around coral reefs off Atlantic coast

The Brazilian government has created an official buffer zone around the Abrolhos National Marine Park to protect the biologically richest coral reefs in the South Atlantic. The buffer zone, created by Brazil's Institute of Environment and Natural Resources (IBAMA), encompasses nearly 95,000 squar...

Healthy coral reefs of Madagascar resisting damage from climate change

Healthy coral reefs of Madagascar's northeast coast have so far resisted the damaging effects of warmer ocean temperatures attributed to global climate change, say scientists who recently studied the region. The survey of a previously unexplored region in March 2006 by scientists from Conservatio...

How marine reserves are giving coral reefs a helping hand

It may be no surprise that marine reserves protect the fish that live in them, but now scientists from the University of Exeter have shown for the first time that they could also help improve the health of coral reefs. In a paper in the prestigious journal Science, Dr Peter Mumby and colleagues l...

Health of Acehnese reefs in the wake of the tsunami shows human impacts more harmful

According to research reported this week in Current Biology, tsunami damage to coral reefs closest to the epicenter of the 2004 Sumatra-Andaman earthquake was occasionally spectacular, but surprisingly limited, particularly when compared to damage from chronic human misuse in the region. Less th...

Health of coral reefs detected from orbit

Australian researchers have found Envisat's MERIS sensor can detect coral bleaching down to ten metres deep. This means Envisat could potentially monitor impacted coral reefs worldwide on a twice-weekly basis. Coral bleaching happens when symbiotic algae living in symbiosis with living coral poly...

Marine conservation organizations team up to conduct Indonesia coral reefs assessment

Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation, Reef Check and World Conservation Union to examine damage to tsunami-affected coral reefs; mission set to start next week Three leading marine conservation organizations will complete an extensive survey next week along the west coast of Aceh Province,...

Tsunami-damaged coral reefs should be left to recover naturally, say scientists

Coral reefs damaged in the Asian tsunami tragedy should be allowed to recover naturally before countries launch into expensive restoration plans, according to some of the world's leading scientists. The scientists, led by a researcher from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, and who set out t...